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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29861136">We'll Work On Us</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Louffox/pseuds/Louffox'>Louffox</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bonding, Death, Fighting, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Making Up, Sad, Self Immolation, discussions of trust, post episode 197, soft</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 00:46:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,029</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29861136</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Louffox/pseuds/Louffox</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jon and Martin discuss what self growth they're going to do when it's all over.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>36</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>We'll Work On Us</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>hey it's sad</p><p>also cw i wrote this on my phone in a chat in 10 minutes immediately following the episode, sorry for any typos, weird tense shifts, unclear things.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>"You should have said something." </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jon's voice is flat and angry as Martin's ever heard it, and he can't help but respond to it in kind. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I'm not your kid, I'm your boyfriend. I'm perfectly capable of going off on my own." </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Martin, this is the apocalypse! You can't-" </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It never stopped you, did it? After we found Leitner beat to death in the office, you just went on your merry way." </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"And look how that turned out! I got burned and </span>
  <em>
    <span>fell</span>
  </em>
  <span>- that Vast thing- and kidnapped and dragged into the woods at gunpoint and-" </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"And that </span>
  <em>
    <span>still</span>
  </em>
  <span> didn't stop you from doing it again, you went into the coffin-" </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Wasn't like I could tell you, you were off being alone- did you not learn from that?! I had to go save you from-"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Well, then, I went off because I knew you would save me again. Look, see, I trusted you! I trusted that you would come get me. I didn’t run off and leave you to go on my own- there was nothing alone about this. I was thinking of </span>
  <em>
    <span>us</span>
  </em>
  <span>, I was doing my role and trusting you to do yours. I trusted you would come save me. Can’t you be happy about that?" </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He can't bear to admit how surprised he was when he felt Jon approach, and hopes Annabelle doesn't tell Jon. He silently wills the thought at her, wondering if the web can detect it like that. </span>
  <em>
    <span>If you want to keep using me to pull him, you've got to keep us together, so don't tell him. Don't tell him I never expected him to save me.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>It's not that he’s lying about trusting Jon, really. He trusts Jon. It’s himself he doesn’t have faith in. Why would Jon find him? Even after being saved from the literal epicenter of Lonely, Martin struggles to remind himself that he isn't alone. Or perhaps not in spite of his time with the fog- maybe because of it. It lingers. He licks his lips and tastes salt, though his eyes are dry.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"But I didn't trust you to go off alone, is that what you're saying?" Jon asks bitterly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Yes." It hurts in the most savagely satisfying way to say it out loud. Jon doesn't trust him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He waits for Jon to blame it on the eye, the paranoia it seeded him with. That it's a part of his avatar-ship, eye-being, whateverness- paranoia is a part of it. They’ve both read the statements. They know.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>.... except perhaps, the paranoia isn’t caused by the eye, in this case. The paranoia might have helped him to be the perfect candidate for the eye. Maybe it’s not the eye causing paranoia, but paranoia causing the eye. Jon was paranoid before-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>before- </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The train of thought lurches to a sickening stop, and Martin feels physically ill as he realizes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There is no before. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He has never known Jon before he belonged to the eye. The only Jon he knows is the one who is the archivist. He’d never met Jon prior to being appointed the archivist.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe the transition took some time, from just a job to the state of being, the capital-a Archivist. Probably. Jon who was irate with birthday parties, and worked too hard, accepted tea with a cold obligatory thank-you, Jon who reacted with disbelief and then fury when Martin brought a dog in that once (and then the small unwilling smile as the dog, Trixie, had nudged her nose gently under Jon’s hand)- that Jon had certainly not been the Archivist. That had been just Jon, an archivist, the man Martin had nursed a crush on.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He didn’t fall in love with the Archivist, the monster. He’d fallen in love with the man.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I'm sorry." The earth seems to shift again, and Martin has to look at the ground beneath his feet as they walk to keep his balance. He wants to close his eyes but fears he might literally fall if he does. He's unsteady, rocked by this all. But Jon isn’t done.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I should have trusted you. I- I'll work on it. When I'm not- I guess I'll be rebuilding myself a bit after this, anyways. So I'll.... I'm working on it. Thank you for being patient with me.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can trust you. It might just…. take some time.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His next steps bring him closer to Martin and he reaches out to take his hand. His fingers are slightly damp, sweaty, but stable. Martin grips him like he's the only thing not shaking around him. He might be. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I love you," Jon says, giving him a small hopeful smile. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I love you too."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Martin looks ahead, at the distance they still have to cover, and walks with purpose. “It’ll be easier when this is all over, anyways. When you’re not The Archivist anymore and don’t have some great eye horror making you it’s avatar.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He risks a glance over and sees the smile brighten. “Life after. I can’t believe I’m excited for something boring. I’m actually looking forward to sorting all this mess out.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I haven’t even thought about after, really. Feels almost like bad luck to think we might actually get out of this.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you really going to make </span>
  <em>
    <span>me</span>
  </em>
  <span> be the optimist?” Jon ribs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s taken the literal end of the world for you to be the optimist,” Martin teases him back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jon’s hand tightens on his. “Not yet. Not the end. There’s still a chance we can get it back.”</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Martin should look out across the sky, the real sky, the new horizon for a saved world, like the rest of them are. He should feel hopeful and in awe that they'd done it, they fixed it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>All he feels is the heat of the fire in front of him, too close to where he kneels in the dirt, and wonders what the point of it all was. He'd never really known Jon at all, he realizes, as the remains of the Archive burn in front of him, and he gasps great choking sobs of the smoky air over the burning corpse of the thing he'd trusted and loved.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>if it's not clear- Jon IS the archives, and there's nothing left.</p><p>I know there's so much to unpack and theorize but i'm so fixated on jon "we have to burn the archives" "we can all live". I'm yelling at this all like it's blues clues and steve- i mean jon- is missing what's RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM.</p><p>also the mental image of jon making eye contact with elias/jonah, pouring gasoline on himself, and lighting himself on fire. going out fingers up. turns out the solution was self immolation all along. gertrude, wherever she is, is finally like "hey, kid was alright after all"</p></blockquote></div></div>
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